


Nine Lives

by Edonohana



Category: The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Cats, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 01:15:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21205790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/pseuds/Edonohana
Summary: One day in every century, Death takes on mortal flesh. Human flesh, that is.At intervals known only to herself, Death becomes a cat for a day.





	Nine Lives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamiflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamiflame/gifts).

One day in every century, Death takes on mortal flesh. Human flesh, that is. 

At intervals known only to herself, Death becomes a cat for a day.  
  


**The Cat Who Meowed**

The cats from which all modern cats descend were not lords of the land, except in the sense that all cats believe themselves to be. Small, fierce, and wary, dusty gray or tawny, they padded soft-pawed through the scrub, hiding from larger predators and hunting rodents and birds. They had recently, in time as the Endless measure it, learned to meow.

The little gray cat whose body Death borrowed for the day caught and ate a jumping mouse with great pleasure, then brought a live one back to her den to teach her kittens to hunt. None of this was unusual. What _was_ unusual was the way that she varied her meows to address each of her kittens, and only acknowledged them if they addressed her with a specific meow.

When the sun sank down and Death departed, the mother cat never noticed that she had been gone for a day. But she did notice and adopt the meows her kittens used to address her and each other. 

They were the first cats to have names.  
  


**The Cat Who Met the Queen**

Cats, they say, cannot be ruled. They cannot be driven or herded. They can be coaxed, but only they choose whether to accept the coaxing.

And yet there is a Queen of the Cats. She does not command. She sets no laws. But if she calls a cat, that cat will answer her summons. It is not bound to obey her requests or reply to her questions, but usually it will. For the job of the Queen of the Cats is to protect all of cat-kind, and even such stubborn, willful, and distractible subjects as hers will keep that in mind.

The Queen of the Cats was old, as cats go. Her hind legs had grown too stiff to jump as she used to, and she spent most of her time dozing in the sun. It was time, she thought, to choose a successor. But while she had the power to touch the minds of all the cats in the world and bring them to her realm, she had not yet made her decision.

_What qualities does the Queen of the Cats need?_ she fretted. _Intelligence? Resourcefulness? Courage? Playfulness? A superb grasp of the sport of mousing?_

She saw many cats who had one or some or all of those qualities, and others to boot. But how could she select the exact right one?

A fluffy tortoiseshell courtier whom the Queen did not remember having seen before (but that was unsurprising, for old age can bring forgetfulness) gave a polite sneeze for attention.

“Yes?” inquired the Queen.

“The Queen of the Cats must, above all, be a cat,” said the tortoiseshell. “She must be the essence of cat. And as all cats contain that essence, any cat will do. In fact, any cat will be perfect.”

The Queen of the Cats saw the wisdom of her courtier’s words. She flung out the net of her consciousness, every fiber as fine as a drifting hair, and reached out. Her paw touched a half-starved, one-eyed street tabby. 

“Me?” said the startled tabby.

“Yes,” said the old Queen, summoning the new Queen to her realm. “You will be perfect.” 

And the old Queen of the Cats gave the new Queen a lick for luck, and then she curled up and closed her eyes. 

The old Queen of the Cats found herself in a strange shadowy realm, facing a small black cat with two white feet, a white mask over her face, and spiraled black markings beneath her eyes. She knew the black cat to have been her tortoiseshell courtier, and she knew who else the cat was as well. 

“Thank you,” said the Queen of the Cats.

“Don’t mention it,” said the black cat.

Her proud tail held high and waving, the Queen of the Cats touched noses with Death.  
  


**The Cat Who Was Worshipped**

She lived in the temple of Bast in the city of Bubastis, along with many other temple cats. They slept on embroidered cushions or, if they preferred, at the feet of the carven Goddess, and were fed on fresh fish and thick cream. Worshippers prayed to and petted them, and brought them gifts of toys and fine blankets and jeweled collars.

At night, when the priests and priestesses and workers all slept, Bast herself would visit. At times a woman, at times a cat, and at times a cat-headed woman, she and the temple cats groomed and played with each other. When it suited her whim, she took them all to her realm. There they could hunt small soft humans and, if they leaped high enough, bat down the sun.  
  


**The Cat Who Ate Faerie Food**

There is no such thing as a faerie cat. All cats can roam in and out of Faerie. It is only a matter of going through the right door at exactly the right time. When a cat meows to be let out, then immediately meows to be let back in, it is trying to get the timing just right.

On the day that Death stepped into the life of a farmer’s cat, there was a famine in the land. No rain would fall. The crops were dead. The mice had eaten the seed corn, and then had been eaten up in turn. The farmer’s cat that was Death was very hungry.

She meowed to be let out, and the farmer’s daughter wearily opened the door. Death waited one heartbeart, then stepped into Faerie. 

She went first to a babbling stream, where she listened to its chatter as she deftly clawed out and ate a crystal-clear fish. It had no bones, and was filling but bland. She drank some water, bid farewell to the naiad, and headed back home. As she trotted through a field of golden grain, she bent down and picked up a shining seed in her mouth. Death waited one heartbeat, then stepped between two stalks. 

She emerged in the hot still air of the farm. The great red ball of the sun was touching the horizon. Death spat out the seed on the barren field. After she had departed, and while the farmer’s cat lay curled in the arms of the farmer’s daughter, a green sprout cracked the earth.  
  


**The Cat Who Sailed the Seas**

It was the seventh month of the voyage, and all but one of the sailors were dead.

The crew of the _Lady May_ had survived pirates, krakens, storms, sirens, mutiny, and all manner of privation, but they had been defeated by peace. A deadly calm had fallen upon the sea, turning it into a sapphire mirror in a world of silence. Not a whisper of wind was heard or felt, and the sails hung like shrouds.

The rowboat was sent out, but it never returned. The only fish that could be caught in these strange waters had faces that eerily resembled those of men. The ship’s cat, a silent slip of a thing, turned up her nose at them. That was remembered later, when the sailors who dared to eat them died screaming. And so, even as the men began to die of scurvy, then of hunger, and finally of thirst, the cat, while on short rations like everyone else, always received her share.

When a strong slow wind finally began to blow, the only sailor left was the cabin boy. Weakened and stumbling, he managed to get the ship moving, but fell from the rigging on his way down. 

Perched alone on the shoulder of the ship’s mermaid figurehead, the silent slip of a cat that was Death spotted land ahead.  
  


**The Cat Who Saw Ghosts**

All cats can see ghosts. Death is not special in that regard. But she pays more attention to them, as she knows each and every one. One day when she was an alley stray, she sat for an hour and did nothing but watch ghosts.

A young man wandered in circles, searching for the nightclub he'd been on his way to when he'd been shot. 

An abandoned dog paced around, sniffing and whining, seeking his master’s scent.

An old woman knocked on air where there had once been a door. 

Sixteen rats whose necks had been broken so quickly that they never felt a thing went about their ratty business, vaguely confused by why scents and tastes had become so faint. The alley cat whose body Death had borrowed was an extremely good ratter.

At the end of the hour, the sun set. And then, as the alley cat headed off in search of her dinner, Death reached out with her hand, her paw, her quivering pink nose.

A moment later, the alley was empty.  
  


**The Cat Who Loved Mysteries**

_Margarethe had eaten nothing in three days. Huddled in the freezing wind and sleet, her skin filthy and covered with sores, she rubbed the ribs her father had cracked in what she hoped would be the last drunken beating she’d ever endure._

Jane took a sip of coffee and wondered if Margarethe should become a prostitute now, or if it would be more plausible if she somehow managed to clean up a bit first. Now, Jane decided. It would drive home the wretchedness and desperation of—

A piercing meow stayed her hand before she’d added a single word. Jane glanced up and saw a tiny calico kitten clinging to the windowsill. 

She looked around for a frantic owner or a mama cat, but there was no one. A stray, Jane supposed. Probably her mother had been killed. 

Jane, who was working two jobs in addition to writing in her precious spare time, had neither room nor time for a pet. But she could hardly just leave the kitten to starve. Maybe she could find a no-kill shelter tomorrow. She went outside, pried the kitten off the windowsill, and poured it a saucer of milk. 

The kitten lapped it up, then began exploring the cramped flat. It headed straight for the bookcases, gave a disdainful sniff at the classics, made a beeline for the mystery section, and started rubbing her head against the Agatha Christies.

Amused, Jane said, “You like mysteries, huh?”

The kitten wandered off, jumped on the coffee table, examined the eclectic selection of books, knocked down a stack of them, and finally settled down with her paws possessively wrapped around _Farewell, My Lovely._

_A cat who loves mysteries,_ Jane thought. _What about a cat who _solves_ mysteries? Or at least gives her owner crucial hints._

It was the opposite of serious literature. But it wouldn’t hurt to take a break and write a light short story to submit to a magazine. Just a day or two of work, and then she’d get back to Margarethe.

Jane would eventually be credited (and sometimes blamed) for the creation of the subgenre of cozy mysteries with pets. Margarethe never saw the light of day, but Poppy the intrepid reporter and her mystery-solving cat Clue, who was based on Jane’s beloved Agatha, hit the bestseller list every year like clockwork for the rest of Jane’s life.

Death feels no guilt. She loves cozies. Especially the ones with cats.  
  


**The Cat Who Found Her Sister**

Some people made flowers spring up everywhere their feet fell. Wherever her feet fell, winged newts and iridescent jellyfish and things with too many legs and no eyes slithered up.

Maybe there weren’t really any people who made flowers spring up. Maybe it was always jellyfish and things with no faces.

The rainbows were eating each other. 

“Del,” said a voice that wasn’t the sort of voice you could have if you didn’t have a mouth. “Del, come with me.”

Delirium looked down at her sister Death, who was the floofiest orange cat she’d ever seen, except for that floofy orange cat in the video.

“What’s the word for when you get lost on purpose because you don’t want to be found, but then you realize that wherever you go, it’ll never be flowers and it’ll always be jellyfish, and when you give them faces so you can talk to them they stop being jellyfish and start being eldritch horrors?” Delirium asked.

Death patted her foot with a huge floofy paw. “It means it’s time to come home.”

“That’s not a word,” Delirium said, but she followed her sister. 

When she glanced back, she saw tiny floofy marigolds blooming in the prints of their feet.  
  


**The Cat Who Chased a Garden Flag**

Death incarnated as a plump black cat who lived with her brother, a handsome tuxedo cat, in a city apartment. He noticed immediately that someone else was inhabiting his sister’s body, but cats know all about Death and her ways. He instructed her on their daily rituals, so she knew to wake their owner by stepping on his face while her brother bit his toes.

After a leisurely breakfast, they napped on the sofa, napped on the floor, chased each other around the living room and broke a lamp, and chased a garden flag that their owner flapped for them to jump and pounce at. In between they groomed themselves and each other. A parcel was delivered, and after it was opened they sat in the box. 

At night they lay on their owner’s stomach and legs while he read on the sofa. When he tried to go to bed, Death meowed until he picked her up and carried her to the bedroom, where he ceremoniously placed her on a pillow at the foot of the bed. It was not embroidered, but it nonetheless reminded her of the pillows in the temple of Bast. She curled up, engaged in a brief but fierce fight with her brother, and went to sleep.

It was a perfect day.


End file.
